Bead-Ruidosa Speckled Stone Donut TB

Please drop this item in rural OR Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission is needed to leave the U.S.

Photos in the travel bug logs are appreciated.  I will be re-post them here, where they can be seen by other cachers.

This is one of a series of large beads obtained from different places and converted into travel bugs. They are named Texas towns with interesting names or histories.

According to the Handbook of Texas, the name translates as either "windy" or "noisy."  This either refers to the omnipresent wind or the sound of water falling over an irrigation dam.  It is almost certainly not the sound of the Rio Grande flowing nearby.  Low rainfall and irrigation reduce the flow of the river to almost nothing at this location.  When the writer was there in the late 60s and early 70s a combination store-café-cantina attracted foot traffic from Mexico, only a few steps away.

The settlement was once a penal colony established by the Spanish in the 1820s.  Prisoners were sent to the remote area to guard ranches in northern Chihuahua against Indian raids.  The uninspired prisoners were so often on the losing side that the project was abandoned.

Much later, in 1872, an American named William Russell constructed ditches to irrigate a farm and a flour mill - a successful operation that prospered for thirty years.  As late as 1879 the farm was attacked by Mescalero Apaches resulting in four settlers killed and three wounded.

By 1914 the community had a post office and 100 citizens. Cotton was planted and a gin constructed. In the late 20s there were about 300 residents in the area.  The gin closed in 1936 and by 1954 the post office discontinued mail delivery.   In late 2004 the town consisted of a few buildings and was listed for sale.